Religious Orders Approve Plans to Curb Abuse

Published: August 11, 2002

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 10—
Leaders of Roman Catholic religious orders today called for moves to curb sexual abuse by their members, including the establishment of independent review boards to monitor how the orders handle abusers.

Prompting criticism from victims' groups, they also reaffirmed their position that abusive priests should be removed from jobs in which they could abuse again, but should not be expelled from the priesthood.

The leaders approved six proposals at a meeting here of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, an umbrella organization for 21,000 priests and brothers in the United States.

In addition to the independent review boards, those proposals suggested that orders designate pastoral care administrators to coordinate services for abuse victims; seek advice from experts on curbing sexual abuse; research more effective ways to treat abusive priests; and commit themselves to dialogue with victims.

The leaders also called for a national review board that included laypeople, for orders that did not set up their own.

But the proposals do not lay out specifics, and members rejected an effort today to require the orders to pledge to adhere to them.

Leaders have repeatedly said that the conference can only make suggestions, because it has no authority over the 300 religious communities that are its members.

About a third of the nation's priests belong to a religious order like the Franciscans or Jesuits. While these priests must have a bishop's permission to serve in a diocesan church, the fates of abusers are decided by the major superiors and provincials who lead their orders.

The Rev. Ted Keating, the Marist priest who is the conference's executive director, told reporters that it would be up to the religious orders themselves to define the particulars of the proposals, including how and whether to set up review boards.

As for the abusive priests, the leaders approved a statement that the orders have an obligation to take care of their members and not to cast them out. That position is at odds with that taken by diocesan bishops, who adopted a policy in June under which abusers would be removed from the priesthood.

''Because of who we are, as religious living lives in the witness of community, we are also called to compassionate responses to any among us who has committed this abuse,'' the statement said. ''He is still our brother.

''He remains a member of our family. Just as a family does not abandon a member convicted of serious crimes, we cannot turn our backs on our brother.''

Members raised concerns about these lines just before the final vote.

''It's very good on our gospel commitment to our compassionate mercy, but it can also be seen as an unnuanced commitment to maintaining convicted rapists and sodomists in our midst,'' said the Rev. David Ullrich of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

''My question is exactly when do we make it clear that we exercise some type of right to dismiss people from our midst because of their incapability of living in our way.''

The debate led the conference to add this line: ''In situations where dismissal is appropriate, due process will be respected.''

But the leaders have emphasized that while they would remove abusers from positions where they would have contact with say, children, it would be up to the individual order to decide how restricted they would be within the community, and whether they could wear religious garb, celebrate private Masses or serve in places like nursing homes.

Victims' advocates immediately criticized the conference as too lenient toward abusers. ''This is not a new chapter for religious orders in this crisis,'' said Mark Serrano, an national board member of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, The Associated Press reported. ''This is the same story we've heard before.''